Rethinking Empathy: What Literature Can Teach Us About Feeling With Others

Recent years have seen exciting developments on the topic of empathy in a number of fields including neuroscience, social psychology, and philosophy. We invite proposals for essays to be included in a collection on empathy and literature. We believe this volume will serve as an important contribution to a growing field of inquiry. The collection conceives of “literature” broadly to include the graphic novel. We are also open to other narrative media, such as film, television, and online media.

Have you tied the knot yet? Or are you still playing the field? Are you a committed feminist, poststructuralist, or ecocritic? Or do you pick up a critical perspective for one project and then using another for the next? Do you still fondly cling to your first love of close reading?

Papers are solicited for this one-day conference that either demonstrate critical identities in action (e.g. a feminist reading of Moby Dick) and/or interrogate the process by which critical identities are found (e.g. how I came to realize that I was a feminist while studying Moby Dick). While the organizers are particularly interested in papers with an environmental focus, submissions from any critical perspective and from any field in the humanities are encouraged. Interdisciplinary papers, hybrid criticism (e.g. ecofeminism), and pre-formed panels are welcomed.
Visit the Natures conference website: http://44547.orgsync.com/org/naturesconference/home